The Opening Keynote: Evolving Community Engagement. What Would Google and Amazon Do?

At the opening keynote, Tom Hogan, ITI President, announced that total attendance for this 28th CIL conference is just under 2,000 people from 48 states and 13 foreign countries. Unfortunately, because of the current government budget policies (the “sequestration”, there are about 150 fewer government employees attending than last year.

Leary began by noting that the information world has changed drastically since 2005. Bach then, there were 5 million terabytes of information on the web. There were 5 million people on Facebook (there 1.2 billion now), and Twitter did not exist; now there are billions of tweets every day.

Here is Leary’s view of the situation we face today:

Information Overload, 2012

According to mashable.com, there are now more iPhones bought than babies being born! Information today is measured in zettabytes (“zetta” means 10 with 21 zeroes after it). But a lot of this information is not getting through because people are over-informed.

True power today is service. Our attention is the most precious resource we have, and the attention economy is not growing. If you want to connect with someone, you must get their attention. Technology is changing our philosophy, behavior, activity, and expectations. We have become participants in events instead of just viewers, which is changing our experiences.

Google Now is getting info to people when they need it–making it more consumable, which creates a better and more long lasting relationship with the customer. True service pays off, as shown by these indicators.

True service pays off

Word of mouth is the best recommendation you can get. The world is moving to a subscription economy, in which people are subscribing to services. The result is that companies can stay engaged with them, and people’s experiences are improved. Even men’s dress fashions have been affected; you can subscribe to the Tie Society and have a networked approach to your tie collection!

Leary defined the “Amazon Effect”: People don’t buy from companies; they buy from people as a result of good experiences. Amazon has perfected this. You can buy anything from them without needing to talk to a person–a frictionless experience in buying. Amazon has perfected online shopping with data, efficiency, and customer service.

All of Amazon’s data is turned into actionable insights and creates insights and empathy with its customers, which leads to trust. One effect of the trust that consumers have in Amazon is that people frequently buy from Amazon even though the product may cost more.

“Syntensity” is the key to dealing with people–sentiment + intensity–how do people feel about the service. Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads takes advantage of these feelings–it will help them get in touch with heavy readers because19% of the public accounts for 79% of book purchases. Goodreads is a very active reading community that shares opinions heavily. Amazon knew this and wanted to tap into that community. Amazon is combining a passion for books and mobile devices–2 in 3 book buyers now have a digital reader.

You make money and improve your customer relationships when you are at the top of the customer loyalty pyramid.